The Liberal Gun Club Forum

I play lots of video games. I hate it when politicians try to scape-goat video games and marginalize gamers as violent crazies. Problem is that both parties do this. Video games are my generations evil rock and roll music. Now of course bullshit connections are being drawn between the Arizona shooting and video games.

http://kotaku.com/5735132/ok-what-would-you-do-about-it

Some of the games are incredibly violent. Personally, I think exposing some kids really desensitizes and detaches the general idea of violence. Some of the gore is way over the top.
Should it be regulated? I really don't know.

You like guns and video games, so of course neither of them could possibly be detrimental to society because you like them.

masonalannz wrote:You like guns and video games, so of course neither of them could possibly be detrimental to society because you like them.

So we should add complete contempt of the 1st amendment to the parts of the bill of rights you don't like? You already seem to hate the 2nd enough.

I don't hate any of the constitution but do realize some of my rights have consequences and have to look beyond my own interest's and consider the greater good and big picture.

Hey MetalSlug, you posted the Wikileaks Apache gun camera video under the thread title "I think I'm gonna be sick". Whats the difference in perspective for those pilots and people playing video games?

I wonder just how desensitized kids were when it was fairly common for one parent to die before the kid was 20, usually in some bloody accident, and there was a likelihood that one of the other children also died from some unfortunate event.

I mean, those old fairy tales were originally fairly bloody and dark, and many were intended as cautionary tales to assist survival. For such tales to have had such a common spread among the population, life must have had a pretty small margin of error with a quick descent into a dirtnap for those who overstepped that margin and couldn't recover.

I may be misremembering, but wasn't there a time in the middle ages when kids weren't even given names until they were like two, because it wasn't worth adding them to the official family roster until they were old enough to follow orders like "Run from the wolf" and could be expected to not die in the middle of the night from SIDS or some other infant malady?

I feel violent video games are hardly the fountain of unprecedented violence that some think. Due to the lack of smell and/or other components, it's likely a good idea for the parents to assist the child in placing violence and the results of violence in proper mental context, but that's about it.

Violent people enjoy violent entertainment.

Violent video games as entertainment does not create violent people any more than regular entertaining range visits.

Or for that matter, D&D, rock and roll, or Hunter S Thompson.

It's just another example of correlation vs. causation.

I'd be much less concerned about video games than movies if I took that line of reasoning seriously. Some of the shit that's coming out (saw, hostel) seems like little more than gore porn. Even Grand Theft Auto isn't that bad.

stickman wrote:It's just another example of correlation vs. causation.

I'd be much less concerned about video games than movies if I took that line of reasoning seriously. Some of the shit that's coming out (saw, hostel) seems like little more than gore porn. Even Grand Theft Auto isn't that bad.

Porn is proven to have no impact on healthy relationships.

porn, violent video games, GWAR, etc are all to be enjoyed within the right framework. A parent needs to establish when their child is capable of understanding the reality of death and the consequences of it, versus the entertainment presented in ultra violent video games.

As an example, I let me 6 year old son play a game where someone - who was a 'bad' person and quite old - gave a smart assed answer to a question. Something along the lines of 'whatever' - the way snotty teenagers say it. He didn't have the ability yet to realize that the joke was that its a very old man using the snotty tone of a teenager. He answered me the same way later. I had to let him know why it wasn't right, and try to help him understand the joke.

I would never consider letting him play violent games or watch violent movies. Many of his friends have seen things like "freddy vs jason". Funny thing is, they tell Jacob that they have to sleep with the light on in their room and the TV playing so they can fall asleep.... I wonder why?

The point is, he isn't mature enough to separate fictional entertainment from reality. I played the original Call of Duty and love it. But I know enough to understand the greater consequences of war both for the humans killed as well as for their families and the societies involved. Does a 12 year old? When my kid is mature enough he can play what he wants. I imagine that will be right around the time he moves out of the house

I never let my kids play video games, we never had cable TV until they were out of the house. Both of my kids have the proper amount of body fat and are good skiers and shooters and swimmers.

I never let my kids play violent video games!

Of course, I don't have kids. Go vasectomy go...

Movies have the MPAA ratings which are voluntary and TV has the Federal Communications Commission which is governmental. Neither system has worked very well, they are both obsessed with sex and overlook violence. I don't have an answer except to encourage more discussion and not to rush towards a quick fix.